Hard Lessons (25 page)
He had spent one afternoon chopping logs into smaller pieces for an elderly man with a log fire who couldn’t manage the big lumps anymore. Then he’d stacked the whole lot neatly in a shed. As it turned out the old guy had a sister who’d wanted a pond digging. It had taken him days because although she called it a pond she actually meant something more akin to a bloody lake, but still, it was work. He didn’t complain, well, not out loud, especially when she’d paid him two hundred quid. Plus she’d fed him while he had been on her property. And she’d recommended him to her friend who had needed an old shed demolishing and carting off. Callum had knocked down the shed, but instead of taking the debris to the tip he’d bagged it up and offered it first to the old guy with the log fire—fuel’s fuel, after all. Another fifty quid, and the satisfaction of recycling to boot.
His enterprise was going okay. He’d managed to earn enough ready cash to acquire a battered old van and a few tools of his own. At first he’d had to walk to his jobs or scrounge a lift from one of his mates, using the clients’ own kit. He had been relieved when he had gained his own transport, however rusty, because the last thing he needed now, just as he was getting on his feet again, was to get caught in a stolen car. And the chances were that any motor driven by one of his friends was at least slightly warm if not red hot. His next goal was to get a place of his own to live, ideally not in Cross Green where he was currently dossing on another mate’s floor. Not that he wasn’t grateful, but he was determined to play it straight. Guilt by association would still be guilt in the eyes of a jury. No, he definitely had to put some daylight between himself and his old haunts.
His strategy was working so far because now he was working for another friend of a friend of one of his clients—the pretty lady with nice legs who wanted a rockery building. A lady who seemed inclined to supervise his every move from her bedroom window, although she’d offered no comments or suggestions for the task. Just left him to get on with it. While she watched. He’d been at it for two days, and pretty much every time he glanced up she was there. Tall, though nowhere near his height. Maybe a little too thin, long wavy hair, sort of brown but maybe more reddish. She must be short-sighted because she always wore glasses. And she had lovely hands. He’d particularly noticed those when she’d handed him a mug of tea half way through his first morning. He’d thanked her, and she had said he was welcome. She had come back out later that day with another mug with some biscuits this time. And a chirpy toddler trotting behind her. That had surprised him—she didn’t look old enough to be a grandmother, although maybe she’d worn well. Very well, in fact. His gran had never looked anything like that. Close up she was—what? Attractive? More than that. She was bloody stunning.
The little kid was called Jacob, apparently, and was blessed with an extraordinary affinity for worms. This was not a fondness shared by his grandma, who had cast an embarrassed glance in Callum’s direction as she’d shuddered and asked the child to put the wriggling little pink knot back in the ground, where its babies could find it. She’d dropped her gaze almost immediately when she’d made eye contact with him, and Callum had still been puzzling about that when he’d heard the childish response—
“But I love it, mummy. It’s my pet.” Jacob had sniffled all the way back to the house, but to no avail. Callum had stared after the retreating pair.
Mummy! Well…
And now, she was there again. Watching him, always watching from the kitchen window and finding some pressing business to conduct on the windowsill the instant he turned in her direction. She’d wipe the paint away if she wasn’t careful.
Christ, he’s gorgeous. A little on the beefy side perhaps but what the hell? I would.
Except she knew she wouldn’t. Didn’t. Ever. Might have once, given the chance, but now there was Jacob to consider. She had responsibilities. Wonderful, life-affirming responsibilities. She wouldn’t change things for the world. But she definitely had no time for casual sex. Or any other sort. No, Rachel Saunders was not on the market. Still, it was a pity.
Not that someone like him would be interested in any case. Not in her. She was at least twenty years too old for him. He must have some lovely, sexy girlfriend tucked away somewhere—a lovely, sexy companion to go to pubs with, or to parties or football matches. And to sleep with afterwards. Someone who probably shared a cup of coffee with him in the mornings before he turned up here, or wherever else he might work. She knew he did a lot of gardening and other odd jobs in the neighborhood, had noticed him around. Who wouldn’t, he didn’t exactly blend in here—not the usual scenery at all. Gorgeous young men, built like athletes, ready to jump to it to do her bidding were not exactly thick on the ground here in leafy Adel.
And if she were brutally honest, the notion of building a rockery had never occurred to her until Jacob’s child minder had mentioned that her uncle had found this particularly enterprising young man who chopped logs, sold firewood and could trim hedges, and would do whatever needed doing around the garden. Putting two and two together, suddenly Rachel had found herself wanting a rockery. So the child minder had obligingly gotten the gardener’s mobile number from her uncle, she’d texted him and here he was. In her garden, digging and humping and generally providing the best floorshow she’d seen in years.
Christ, how pathetic.
In a few days he’d move on, she’d be two hundred quid down, and all she’d have to show for it would be a pile of soil with a few strategically positioned boulders and some heathers poking out of it. It wasn’t even as though her rockery would thrive, the gardener had told her as much and he seemed to know what he was talking about. He had even suggested a better location for it, but Rachel had rejected that notion out of hand as it would have entailed him completing the work in much less time. She wanted him here, for as long as she could spin the job out.
She really, really had to get out more. Just had to. But it wasn’t easy with a three-year-old, and she had to earn a living. Working from home as a freelance accountant paid the bills and made things a little easier with Jacob, but it meant no social life at all. At least not for the next few years.
Not that life BJ—Before Jacob—had been one endless social whirl exactly. Back then she’d worked for a huge firm in Leeds city center, but had tended to keep herself to herself, had had lunch with female friends from time to time, and once or twice joined in girlie nights out. But no relationships, nothing to speak of. She had been too busy building her career, establishing herself, eventually managing to reach the dizzy heights of Small Business Adviser. That had meant that any client of the firm with less than fifty employees had gotten the not inconsiderable benefit of Rachel’s advice on their tax affairs. She was good with tax, prided herself on never letting the taxman get his hands on one penny he wasn’t absolutely and irrefutably entitled to. Never anything remotely shady, of course, always straight as a die, but Rachel knew tax law inside out, upside down and backwards, and ‘tax efficiency’ was her middle name.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending on her view of such matters, ‘contraceptive efficiency’ had become something of an alien concept. She used to be good at that stuff—as a teenager with all her life ahead of her she’d known with absolute certainty the value of avoiding unwanted pregnancies or worse, and had taken particular care. Then she’d ‘grown up’, gotten all sensible and serious, and stopped bothering with all that messy business entirely. Eventually all the men she might have been interested in had sort of drifted off and gotten married to other women. Some had gotten divorced, and there might have been opportunities over the years, but she was never in the right place at the right time, or was just too busy…and she had sort of gotten out of practice.
Then, four summers ago, she had found herself on holiday in Spain with three single friends from the office. Somehow the normal rules hadn’t seemed so important there, and she’d ended up in bed with a rather charming Spanish lifeguard called Sebastien. And the rest was history.
After the first shock had worn off, when she’d discovered she’d come back from Spain with more than a stuffed donkey and bikini stripes to show for the adventure, Rachel had embraced this whole new life with a vengeance. She had never—not once—considered terminating her pregnancy. Indeed, she half wondered if she’d subconsciously done this on purpose—a sort of body clock taking over thing. In any case, Jacob was an absolute gift, she adored him, and she re-arranged her entire life around him. She had resigned from her job as soon as she’d known she was pregnant and had started her own business. Her reputation was such that she’d had no trouble attracting the first few clients, even without invoking the wrath of her previous employer by poaching their accounts. She had soon been bringing in enough each month to keep her afloat, and maybe she could step it all up a little later on, once the baby was here and she was settled again.
Somehow she hadn’t quite reached that stage yet, but she was content. She was comfortable. And she had her wonderful little boy.
And now, at least for the next few days, she had a rather wonderful big boy too. But best not to let him know she’d been watching him. It wouldn’t do to embarrass him, after all. Or herself.
* * * *
“Could you move your van, please. I need to get out.”
Callum straightened, wiped perspiration from his forehead as he turned to his client. She looked remarkably fresh this morning, and had a sort of slightly damp, just showered look about her. While he just felt minging. No hot shower at Kev’s place, no hot water at all since the electricity had gotten cut off. He so needed to move.
“Right.” He didn’t apologize for blocking her in, just groped in his jeans pocket for the keys to his battered old black Transit and strolled past her. She trailed him around the side of the house to the front, where Jacob was already strapped into his child seat in the back of his mum’s Ford Fiesta. Nice car, he mused, very serviceable. Like its owner. Except she wasn’t about to let him service her any time soon. Pity.
He smiled at the kid as he passed and hopped up into his own van. He backed it out of the drive, then waited in the road for the Fiesta to emerge from the gate. When she’d gone he maneuvered his van back into the driveway, tucked it around the side of the house out of her way, then got back to work.
The low growl of her diesel engine about twenty minutes later told him she was back. The crunch of tires on gravel as she pulled into the drive. The engine died and seconds later the car door slammed shut. Just one car door, so that meant she hadn’t brought the kid back with her. School? No, too young, surely. Nursery then. He shrugged and got on with piling soil into his, or rather her, wheelbarrow.
About the Author
In 2010, Ashe escaped a career in the public sector and started to write. Now she counts herself one of the lucky few who spend their time doing what they love.
Ashe has been an avid reader of women’s fiction for many years—erotic, historical, contemporary, fantasy, romance—you name it, as long as it’s written by women, for women. Now, at last in control of her own time and working from her home in rural West Yorkshire, she has been able to realize her dream of writing erotic romance herself.
She likes to write about people, relationships, and the general cock-up and mayhem that is most of our lives. She often writes about places she’s known but her stories of love, challenge, resilience and compassion are the conjurings of her own imagination, with a hefty dose of kink to keep it interesting. We all need to have a hobby.
Ashe loves to craft strong, enigmatic men and bright, sassy women to give them a hard time—in every sense of the word.
When she’s not writing, Ashe’s time is divided between her role as resident taxi driver for her teenage daughter, and caring for a menagerie of dogs, rabbits, tortoises, and Colin the hamster.
Email:
[email protected]
Ashe loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.totallybound.com
Also by Ashe Barker
The Hardest Word: A Hard Bargain
What’s Her Secret?: The Three Rs
Totally Bound Publishing
